Those gains resulted from the acquisition of several companies, held in our portfolio of venture capital investments, by publicly traded companies.

The bulk of these charges, in fact, are reductions of the non-cash venture capital gains recognized in late 1999 and 2000.

The key with Merrill is they're not as dependent on some of the venture capital private equity gains some of these companies earned earlier in the year, but have now lost.

The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect; however, very few of them are actually obvious when you make them.

Like anything else in venture capital, you tend to allocate capital to those companies that can yield the highest returns. It would have been a mistake to invest substantially when it was apparent that we would not be receiving great returns.

Many of the best firms historically in venture capital have been multi-sector.